Typewriting machine



Dec. 1 1934. .w. H. BARBER 1,984,857

TYPEWRLTING MACHINE Filed Oct.. 28, 1951 I Patented Dec. 18, 1934 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE Claims. (Cl. 197-170) This invention relates to vibrating ribbon shields or guides for typewriters, and is shown as attached to an Underwood typewriter as illustrated in- Patent No. 1,399,480, dated December 5 6, 1921, to William F. Helmond.

The device is especially useful on machines fitted with carriers for positioning cards, because y it eliminates the loss of time required for drawing the carriage to one side before inserting the card and tabulating to working position.

Usually, when the machine is at rest or during the time cards are being inserted, the ribbon does not retain a straight condition in the rear of the ribbon-guide posts adjacent to the platen, but forms a bow, which reduces the available space between said ribbon and platen.-

portion of the ribbon interferes with work being inserted at the front of the platen. To eliminate this obstacle is the object of this invention, which prevents the card or work-piece, while being inserted at-the front of the platen, from fouling or rubbing said ink ribbon.

A further object is to form an improved guide to facilitate the-insertion of the card.

This invention employs a piece of forked metal with two lugs turned towards the front at the upper tips of the fork or ribbon-shield. The fork is securely attached to the back of the ribbon-guide, leaving suflicient space between the front of the ribbon-shield and the back of the ribbon-guide to allow the ribbon to work freely. Space is provided between the top of said ribbonguide and the under side of lugs on said ribbonshield, to allow the ribbon to be threaded easily into place.

The invention prevents envelopes, cards or still papers from touching the ribbon when the same are inserted from either the front or the back of the platen.

Other features and advantages will hereinafter appear.

In the accompanying drawing,

Figure 1 is a perspective showing relation of ribbon guide, shield, ribbon, platen and'cardholders.

Figure 2 is a side view showing a card before and after insertion and how the lugs on the ribbon-shield guide said card into place.

Figure 3 is a side view showing a card-holder in position on the machine and the relation of ribbon guide and shield.

Figure 4 is a plan with a buckled card ready to be inserted.

Figure 5 is a plan with a card in position.

A ribbon-guide 11 has a shield 12,. with a set The bow- 13 of sufiicient depth to allow clearance for the ribbon 14 to pass through freely. It is attached by rivets 15, with the extreme upper ends of its fork having lugs 16 bent forward at a distance above edge 17 of said ribbon-guide, to allow 5 sufficient space so that said ribbon 14 may be easily introduced.

It will be seen that from whichever side of the platen 20 the card 19 is inserted, it will have a smooth metal surface 18 .to. slide against, and 10 the thickness of said metal 18 between the card 19 and the ribbon 14 will prevent the card 19 from fouling said ribbon 14.

Said lugs 16, in conjunction with the platen 20,

form, as seen in Figure 2, a tapering throat or 15 guide for the front-insertion of the card 19 to printing position.

It will be noted that the forwardly and upwardlyinclined upper' ends 16 of the shield '12,

spaced above the top of the ribbon-vibrator, ad- 20 mit of edgewise insertion and withdrawal of the ribbon 14 in and from said vibrator, and facilitate such insertion. It will also be noted that should the top of the ribbon-vibrator be normally substantially below the printing point, said 25 inclined ends 16 of the shield also prevent the top of the vibrator and ribbon from fouling the bot tom edge of the card during the up-and-down movement .of the vibrator to and from the printing point, while typing on said card close to its ..0 bottom edge. g

The surfaces or deflecting fingers 18 may be staggered relativelytothe ribbon-vibrator eyes through which the ribbon 14 is threaded and which eyes are, as usual, at opposite sides of the printing Point. Said fingers 18 may accordingly be attenuated as indicated in Figures 1, 4 and 5, so that, substantially, "they do not overlap the vertical ribbon-vibrator elements which form, as seen in Figure 1, the inner sides of said eyes.

v The ribbon-vibrator eyes are thus not encumbered by the front-insertion device, and the threading of the ribbon 14 through said eyes is correspondingly facilitated.

Card-holder 21 is held to. carriage 22 by carrying bar 23. Should the card 19 be tight'or buckled in the holder 21, the card will normallyspring away from the platen 20', as shown in Figure 4. In this case the ends 16 of the ribbon,- shield 11 guide said end 19 into position;

Ribbon-spools 24-, type-bar 25, yp -bar guide 26, ribbon-vibrating lever 27, upper feed-roll 28, paper-table 29 and lower feed-roll 30 show the relation of the invention to other portions of a typewriter.

Variations may be resorted to within the scope of the invention, and portions of the improvements may be used without others.

Having .thus described my invention, I claim:

1. In a front-strike typewriting machine having a platen, a front-insertion device including,

in combination, a ribbon-vibrator standing in front of the platen and having eyes through which the ribbon is threaded, one eye at each side of the printing point, and a card-insertor in the form of a metal fork secured to the back of the ribbon-vibrator below the ribbon and having prongs narrowed to laterally clear said eyes and printing point, said prongs extending upwardly back of and above the ribbon and-bent forwardly at their upper ends to form inclined guides for the lower edge of the work being inserted bottom-edge first between the ribbon and the platen.

2. In a front-strike typewriting machine having a platen, a front-insertion device including,

in combination, a ribbon-vibrator standing in front of the platen and having eyes through which the ribbon is threaded, one eye at each side of the printing point, and a card-insertor in the form of a pair of deflecting fingers mounted on said ribbon-vibrator between the ribbon and the platen and extending above the ribbon, one finger at each side of the printing point and narrowed to laterally clear the eye at said side, the fingers having at their upper ends a portion bent forwardly over the ribbon to form an inclined di rectrix for the card, to prevent the latter from fouling the ribbon when being inserted bottom first downwardly in front of the platen, said workdire'ctrix being spaced above the top'of the ribbon-vibrator, to admit of insertion and with drawal of the ribbon edgewise between the vibrator and thedirectrix. I

3. In a front-strike typewriting machine having a platen, a front-insertion device including, in

combination, a ribbon-vibrator standing in front of the platen and having eyes through which the ribbon is threaded, one eye at each side of the printing point, and a card-insertor in the form of a pair of deflecting fingers mounted on said ribbon-vibrator below the ribbon and mounted between the ribbon and the platen, and extending above the ribbon, one finger at each side of the printing point, each finger being attenuated so as to be staggered between the eye and the printing point, and being bent forwardly over the ribbon to form an inclined directrix for the card, to prevent the latter from fouling the ribbon when being inserted bottom first downwardly in front of the platen.

4. In a front-strike typewriting machine having a platen; a front-insertion device including a ribbon-vibrator standing in front of the platen and having eyes through which the ribbon is threaded, one eye at each side of the printing point, said vibrator arranged so as to. present at each sideof the printing point a pair of vertical elements, one behind the other and slightly separated to admit the ribbon therebetween, the forward element forming one side of said eye, the rear element being arranged so as to be staggered between the eye and the printing point, the rear elements being extended above the ribbon to pre sent a portion bent forwardly over the ribbon to form a directrix for the work-piece to prevent the latter from fouling the ribbon when being inserted bottom first downwardly in front of the platen.

5. In a front-strike typewriting machine having a platen and a ribbon-vibrator standing in front of the platen, said ribbon-vibrator having on each side of the printing point an eye through which the ribbon is threaded; a front-insertion device arranged to move up and down with said' vibrator and including means extending rearwardly and downwardly, from a point above and forwardly of the ribbon-portion which spans the vibrator-eyes, to form an inclined directrix for deflecting a work-sheet into the space between the platen and said ribbon-portion, said device also including a finger on each side of the printing point extending downwardly from said directrix between the ribbon and platen, whereby, when front inserting the work-sheet bottom edge first and downwardly, fouling of the ribbon by said work-piece is prevented, said fingers being so formed relative to the ribbon-vibrator eyeopenings that said openings extend laterally beyond said fingers and are thereby left open to facilitate ribbon threading.

WILLIAM H. BARBER. v 

